CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — Australian Prime Anthony Albanese said on Tuesday he expects public support for creating a so-called Indigenous Voice to Parliament will grow after he focuses the nation’s minds on the issue by setting a date for Australia’
Albanese will announce on Wednesday a date for a referendum that would enshrine in the constitution an Indigenous Voice to Parliament, a collection of advocates aimed at giving the nation’s most disadvantaged ethnic minority more say on government policy.
Albanese has long maintained confidence that the referendum would succeed despite opinion polls showing marginal majority support for the Voice waning in recent months as the public debate has become more heated and divisive. The Australian Electoral Commission, which runs federal elections and referendums, on Tuesday said it had begun distributing 13 million pamphlets to households with arguments penned by lawmakers for and against the Voice. Australia’s population is 26 million.
The Voice was recommended in 2017 by a group of 250 Indigenous leaders who met at Uluru, a landmark sandstone rock in central Australia that is a sacred site to traditional owners. They were delegates of the First Nations National Constitutional Convention that the then-government had asked for advice on how the Indigenous population could be acknowledged in the constitution.
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